Sun Ultra 20 M2 Impressions
Lately, a few people have emailed me and asked what I think of the Sun Ultra 20 M2 (particularly the base model) compared to other AMD-based systems. I thought I’d collect my thoughts on the Ultra 20 M2 here, especially now that I’ve been using it for the past few months.
If you do decide to buy the base machine, you’re going to want to upgrade the video card (the onboard video is okay, but the quality isn’t great and it’s obscure enough that I’ve had problems with it and Linux). You’ll probably want to upgrade the RAM, too. Watch out, though — the Ultra 20 M2 takes unbuffered ECC RAM, which is expensive and hard to find.
If you want to add an extra drive to the Ultra 20 M2, it looks like you have to buy the drive from Sun; the Ultra 20 M2 uses proprietary drive sleds, and I don’t think you can order sleds separately. There are only two drive bays available in the Sun Ultra 20 M2, too, which will be an annoying limitation down the road (the Power Mac G5 has the same limitation, which at first didn’t seem like a big deal, but is incredibly frustrating now that both drive bays are full).
What do I like about the Ultra 20 M2? Well, I really like and appreciate the case; the Ultra 20 M2 has a well-designed case that’s a pleasure to work with because there’s a lot of room inside of it. Some of the standard features (like dual gigabit ethernet ports) are unexpected (especially on a machine as inexpensive as the Ultra 20 M2). Being able to install Solaris on an x64-based computer without worrying about hardware compatibility is great.
Overall, though, if you’re looking for an AMD-based computer to an operating system other than Solaris, you might want to give Dell-based AMD systems a serious look. They’re not as pretty as the Sun, but they’re cheaper and easier to expand (thanks to the fact that you can drop in components from your local computer shop).
